The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.

From the Ethics of the Fathers: "He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it."

Sunday, March 20, 2016

"Tectonic shift in political landscape of Germany"

Chancellor Angela Merkel 's
migration policy is causing security mayhem in Germany, where mostly
Muslim migrants are raping and assaulting women and children with
virtual impunity.

Merkel's party was defeated in two out of the three federal
states voting in March 13 regional elections. By contrast, the
Alternative for Germany (AfD) — an upstart anti-establishment party
campaigning against Merkel's liberal migration policy — surged to
double-digit results in all three states.

Political and media elites are ramping up a months-long campaign
to delegitimize AfD voters as agitators, arsonists, far-right
extremists, fascists, Nazis, populists and xenophobes.

Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel has called on German intelligence
to begin monitoring the AfD, presumably in an effort to silence critics
of the government's migration policy. Gabriel has called for Germany to
take in even more migrants by airlifting them into the country directly
from the Middle East.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has vowed to continue her open-door
migration policy — despite heavy losses in regional elections that were
widely regarded as a referendum on that very policy.

Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) was defeated in two out of
the three federal states voting on March 13. By contrast, the
Alternative for Germany (AfD) — an upstart anti-establishment party
campaigning against Merkel's liberal migration policy — surged to
double-digit results in all three states: Baden-Württemberg,
Rhineland-Palatinate and Saxony-Anhalt.

In a press conference after the election results were in, Merkel remained defiant. She reprimanded
German voters for questioning her handling of the migration crisis:
"There are people who did not listen to us at all and simply cast
protest votes. We need to solve this [migrant] problem, not through
theoretical debates, but by finding a [European] solution to the
problem."

The elections were the most important in Germany since Merkel allowed
more than one million migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East to
enter the country in 2015. Merkel's migration policy is causing security mayhem in Germany, where mostly Muslim migrants are raping and assaulting women and children with virtual impunity.

With immigration now the dominant issue in German politics, Merkel's
refusal to reverse her open-door migration policy has alienated many of
her traditional supporters, scores of whom are flocking to the AfD to
protest Germany's pro-immigration, pro-EU political establishment.

The AfD was founded as a Eurosceptic party in 2013 by German
economists advocating the abolition of the European single currency, the
euro, and opposing financial bailouts of profligate eurozone countries
such as Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain.

At the time, the AfD was widely ridiculed by Germany's mainstream media. In July 2013, for example, the Rheinische Post published an "analysis" which referred
to the AfD as the "unlucky professor's party" that "does not have many
chances" as a political party. Nevertheless, in 2014 and 2015, the AfD secured seats in five of Germany's 16 regional parliaments, and seven seats in the European Parliament.

After an internal power struggle, Frauke Petry — a 40-year-old
chemist, entrepreneur and mother of four who hails from the former East
Germany — assumed leadership of the AfD in July 2015. Since then, Petry
has broadened the party's initial focus on economics to immigration.

The AfD — now the third-largest party in Germany — poses a
significant challenge to the political status quo in Germany. If its
momentum holds, the AfD is on track to cross the 5% threshold in general
elections in 2017 to qualify for seats in the national legislature, the
Bundestag.

In
recent regional elections, the CDU party of German Chancellor Angela
Merkel (left) suffered heavy losses to the upstart anti-establishment
party Alternative for Germany, led by Frauke Petry (right).

The left-leaning German newsmagazine, Der Spiegel, long hostile toward the AfD, acknowledged that the party has achieved a "breakthrough" and called the election result "Black Sunday" for Merkel:

"For a long time she had hoped, despite considerable
popular opposition to her refugee policy, to win two chancelleries in
the southwest of the country. This has come to nothing. Merkel will now
have to live with the accusation that she has allowed the AfD finally to
establish itself [as a democratic alternative] to the right of the
CDU."

The leader of the AfD, Frauke Petry, said
the fact that her party won big in two states in western Germany —
Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate — showed that "the AFD is an
all-German party and that citizens in all regions of Germany want a
change of politics." In a Facebook post, she added:

"Yesterday we made a first important step in the right
direction to break the cartels of consensus parties. Already, it has
been indicated that they [mainstream parties] will not accept the will
of the people. We will probably see the most colorful combination of
political coalitions, just so they can continue to stay in power and
further marginalize voters of the AfD."

Petry was referring to Merkel's spokesman, Steffen Seibert, who said that despite her electoral drubbing, Merkel will not reverse course on migration:

"The Federal Government will continue to pursue its
refugee policy, with full determination, at home and abroad. At home, we
will ease the path to integrate those people who have sought and found
protection here. At European level, the goal must be a common,
sustainable European solution that leads to a reduction in the number of
refugees in all member states of the European Union."

The CDU's general secretary, Peter Tauber, echoed
the view that there is no alternative to Merkel's migration policy:
"Considering what we have already achieved, I recommend that we continue
on the path we are on."

Some German commentators have tried to downplay the AfD's gains by
arguing that although Merkel lost the election, she actually won the
election because the majority of Germans voted for mainstream parties.
Bernd Ulrich, editor of Die Zeit, wrote:

"These three elections, which were in fact a plebiscite
on the refugee policy, sent an encouraging message of approval. On
average, two-thirds of voters cast ballots for parties that support the
relatively liberal refugee policies of Angela Merkel."

"On Sunday Angela Merkel achieved an unlikely feat: her
party was trounced, but her refugee policy was confirmed and
strengthened... How did the chancellor do on Election Day? In truth, she
has been strengthened. The fact is: a large majority of voters support
the chancellor."

According to Augstein, Merkel is "the right woman in the wrong party"
because she has moved the center-right CDU to the left on so many
issues, including migration policy, that the party is now virtually
indistinguishable from its coalition partner, the center-left Social
Democratic Party (SPD). What Augstein failed to mention is that Merkel's
move to the left is responsible for creating a political vacuum to the
right of the CDU — a vacuum that is now being filled by the AfD.

On Election Day, Die Zeitridiculed the AfD's 70-point political platform by using the following bullet points:

"More popular referendums, more monitoring of citizens,
stiffer penalties for criminals, dissolve the EU, shrink the state,
lower taxes, cut social spending, put women back in the kitchen, ban
employment quotas for women, make it harder to file for divorce, abolish
abortion, close borders, harass Muslims, ruin the climate, expand
nuclear power, expand the military, more private weapons, etc."

Taxpayer-funded ZDF public television broadcast an interview
with Thomas Kliche, a German psychologist, who compared AfD voters to
"children who are stubborn and unreasonable." The only way to deal with
such people, he said, is "just have patience, ignore the stupidity, and
confront it with rationalism."

According to Kliche, AfD voters are suffering from "macro-social stress" induced by globalization (i.e., mass migration):

"People react with various forms of shock management.
This begins with retrograde, regressive, childish fantasies that
everything can be as it was before. Some believe that by shouting 'We
are the People!' [the main slogan of anti-government demonstrators in
East Germany in 1989-1990, reminding their leaders that Germany should
be ruled by the people, not by an undemocratic party claiming to
represent them], the migrants will disappear.... They have no solutions,
just fantasies. Building a fence — this is a fantasy. Separate yourself
from the world — that is a fantasy."

Meanwhile, Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel has called
on German intelligence to begin monitoring the AfD, presumably in an
effort to silence critics of the government's migration policy. Gabriel —
who leads the SPD, which also suffered significant losses on March 13 —
has called the AfD a party of "right-wing extremists" who "use the language of the Nazis." At the same time, Gabriel has called for Germany to take in even more migrants by airlifting them into the country directly from the Middle East.

By contrast, Horst Seehofer, the head of the Christian Socialist Union (CSU), the CDU's sister party in Bavaria, said
the rise of the AfD amounts to a "tectonic shift in the political
landscape of Germany." He warned that tectonic shifts trigger
earthquakes that cause irreversible changes. Seehofer demanded
that Merkel reverse course: "It cannot be that after such an election
result, the answer to the electorate is: everything will go on as
before."

CSU politician Hans-Peter Uhl summed
it up this way: "I expect the chancellor clearly to admit: 'Yes, we
have understood. We are going to return to the voters. Politics must
move toward the voter, not the other way around. This is called
democracy.'"

Merkel has not said if she plans to run for a fourth term in 2017.

Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute.
He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based
Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter.His first book, Global Fire, will be out in 2016.